All electric house - not sure if spending too much?

lizzie201296

matelodave wrote: »

You'll probably find that a fair proportion of your daytime use over the weekend and evenings it the peak rate heater that you are using in the lounge.
Other ways of saving energy or reducing the cost would be to try using the washing machine, tumble dryer and dishwasher overnight on the off-peak tariff - a lot of machines have a delay timer which allows this. You could also do your vaccying and ironing then as well but it's not so practical.

Turn stuff off that's not in use at the wall. Change incandescent lightbulbs in rooms where lighting is used alot, especially if you've got halogen downlighters in the kitchen or bathroom. LEDs will save 90% of the energy used.

Dont waste hot water by using it for rinsing or letting it run down the sink - everytime you run the cold through the hot tap until hot water flows you waste the cold water and the same amount of hot water sits in the pipes to get cold wasting the energy that you used to heat it.

You'll use about 65-70% of your annual energy consumption between November and March and only 30% in the seven summer months so it's a good idea to keep your own spreadsheet so you can monitor your consumption profile to see if your electricity account will balance at the end of the contract.

Here's how I do it - I pay £75 month = £900 year and then work out the rough percentage cost to see if I'm on track

Month Percentage Cost
Jan 16% £144
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
sep
Oct
Nov
Dec

This is great, thank you. I think the best approach then is to leave as is for now in terms of the E7 as I will need a longer term view to work out what really is best, like you say. I will keep a record of use over the year. I am at least going to switch provider because Bulb has quoted me much less...and then replace the living room heater with a more efficient storage heater - I have seen ones online that can be timed to release the heat when you want it (what I don't like about the old ones in the bedrooms is that they release the heat throughout the day, although they are still warm in the evenings and switched off anyway so it doesn't worry me).

Cardew

Can you get appliances(washing machine/dryer/dishwasher) timed so they take advantage of E7 timings?

matelodave

Cardew wrote: »

Can you get appliances(washing machine/dryer/dishwasher) timed so they take advantage of E7 timings?

Yes - both our washing machine & tumble dryer have delay timers. Our inbuilt dishwasher doesn't although we could have had one that did.

We dont have E7 so there's no advantage for us but for some people it would be a bonus to do their washing and diswashing overnight espcially if they can save 50% of their energy cost whilst doing it.

My wife tends to blitz the washing on one day a week so both the washing machine & dryer seem to be running all day. Something which reflects badly on our electricty consumption on washing day.

I've not really done the sums but I guess that a load of washing plus drying takes around 3kwh and we average say three loads a week (there are only two of us, so a family would probably do 5 or 6) = 9kwh x 50 = 450kwh a year for us but upwards of 1000kwh a year for a family so you could make substantial savings by doing the washing during off-peak times. Likewise running the dishwasher at night, especially if you run it daily could use around 400kwh a year

lizzie201296

Cardew wrote: »

Can you get appliances(washing machine/dryer/dishwasher) timed so they take advantage of E7 timings?

Not really - the washing machine is right outside the bedroom so to run it through the night would be quite disruptive. No dishwasher.

macman

You are paying about 300% more per kWh to run the living room convector on day rate, so if you want to triple your heating and DHW costs, by all means switch to a standard tariff. Replace with an NSH ASAP.
Your consumption is fine to make E7 economic for you. Typically you need to use 33% on night rate to make it pay, depending on tariff.
If the NSH's are releasing their heat too quickly, adjust the input and output controls to release the heat more slowly. Old ones may be unattractive, but they are not really any less efficient, since they are merely a tin box with bricks and elements between them. All electrical heaters are the same efficiency: 100% .
Your monthly payment seems fairly OK to me: you'll come out of winter with some debit, and this will be reduced over the summer. Then in the autumn you should be back in credit before the colder weather. Monthly readings will keep you on track.

lizzie201296

Thank you everyone for all your help. I'll be back in a year to review!